JESSE RAMDEO

Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh has tak­en the Labour Min­is­ter to task fol­low­ing re­cent find­ings un­earthed dur­ing the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Paria/LM­CS Div­ing Tragedy.

Fol­low­ing pre­lim­i­nary hear­ings in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent, ques­tions over ad­e­quate train­ing and safe­ty sys­tems have been raised by at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Ltd as well as Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd.

The Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, chaired by KC Jerome Lynch, has been ex­am­in­ing the cir­cum­stances which led to the trag­ic in­ci­dent which oc­curred on Berth No. 6, Pointe-a-Pierre, which led to the deaths of four LM­CS divers.

Among its oth­er terms of ref­er­ence are ex­am­in­ing the poli­cies, pro­ce­dures, prac­tices and con­duct re­lat­ing to Paria and LM­CS’ em­ploy­ees, or­gan­ised and con­tract­ed labour for these types of main­te­nance ex­er­cis­es, as well as ex­am­in­ing all of the de­ci­sions and ac­tions tak­en af­ter it be­came clear that the five LM­CS divers in­volved in the in­ci­dent went miss­ing.

Speak­ing at a UNC me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, In­dars­ingh chal­lenged Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc­Clashie to state why he opt­ed not to tes­ti­fy be­fore the com­mis­sion.

“Why would Stephen Mc­Clashie, like Min­is­ter Young, choose to not tes­ti­fy be­fore the com­mis­sion? There are ques­tions that need to be an­swered about the state of reg­u­la­tions and labour stan­dards that must be en­forced re­gard­ing the type of work con­duct­ed by the divers on that fate­ful day and work en­vi­ron­ment and poli­cies that should have ex­ist­ed. The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Agency (OS­HA) falls di­rect­ly un­der the Min­is­ter and Min­istry of Labour,” In­dars­ingh said.

In­dars­ingh called on Mc Clashie to state whether the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency was equipped and re­sourced. He con­tend­ed that if the ad­vi­so­ry body was not suf­fi­cient­ly out­fit­ted, then it is not in any po­si­tion to safe­guard against fu­ture in­dus­tri­al in­ci­dents.

“There are al­so re­ports of nu­mer­ous va­can­cies ex­ist­ing at OS­HA at the time of this in­ci­dent. How would these or any ex­ist­ing va­can­cies have af­fect­ed the abil­i­ty of OS­HA to con­duct in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to this is­sue?”

Mean­while, In­dars­ingh said ac­tions must be tak­en to pros­e­cute Paria Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and ar­gued that all at­tor­neys, with the ex­cep­tion of Paria’s at­tor­ney Gilbert Pe­ter­son, have found that Paria was neg­li­gent and ir­re­spon­si­ble in its ap­proach to at­tempt­ing to save the lives of the men.

“We in the Op­po­si­tion agree and al­so call for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion to be made against those per­sons at Paria who were neg­li­gent in their du­ty of care,” he said. (Jesse Ramdeo)